ASICs dominate the scene cryptocurrency mining for several years now. The first of them came from a company that is still with us today, Canaan (formerly Avalon), which built The first ASIC for Bitcoin in 2012. Since then, the crypto world began to see how these powerful machines accelerated mining and generated huge profits for those who had them. But at the same time, it made blockchains increase their mining difficulty and inherent security.
For better or worse, ASICs are now an essential part of the cryptocurrency space. In fact, without them, blockchains that use PoW consensus would be inherently less secure. After all, in PoW, security depends on the brute computational strength of the network. Of course, there is also the issue of decentralization, which ASICs directly attack, because they tend to do the opposite. But despite this, the community largely accepts their existence and giants like Bitmain and Canaan continue to push the development of these devices.
Now the evolution of these devices is captured by a technological evolution that year after year seems to break the laws of physics. We are talking about silicon and semiconductor technology, the same technology that allows us to build advanced computer chips and has taken us directly to the digital world we have today. Today, companies like TSMC, STM, SMIC e Intel are striving to build the smallest, cheapest, and most powerful semiconductors they can. The so-called “Silicon Wars»Or«Nanometer Warfare» has led these companies to now achieve construction processes as small as 7 nanometers (7nm). And to give you an idea of the scale, by reaching the measurement of 1 nm we would already be able to manage and create structures atom by atom.
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Silicon and ASICs, a relationship of power and efficiency
However What does this have to do with the world of ASICs and cryptocurrencies? It's simple, each ASIC is made up of tens or hundreds of chips built on silicon wafers. So as our silicon technology improves, ASICs become more powerful and efficient. We've already seen that in the early days ASICs could barely handle a few tens of MH/s. But as silicon improved, power consumption fell relative to power. We now have ASICs so powerful that they easily surpass the 100 TH/s mark in SHA-256, the algorithm used by Bitcoin.
The same situation applies to the rest of the algorithms that can be mined by ASICs. Each new improvement in silicon quickly leads to an increase in the power of ASICs. A cycle that is linked to the increase in the power of these blockchains and the profits that those who manage these ASICs can obtain.
Companies like Bitmain and Canaan are aware that miners want all the power available at the lowest price and power consumption possible. For that reason, they always update their rigs' chips as soon as the next nanometric manufacturing process becomes available. Right now, the barrier is at 7nm, which is the most advanced process we have in operation, but 5nm and 3nm are already in the oven, waiting to mature before they begin production.
A splendid and increasingly miniaturized future
Everything seems to point to a splendid future in which we will continue to obtain a lot of power, for low prices and lower consumption. But nothing could be further from the truth. And the reason is very simple: the dream of every foundry (chip factory) is to achieve 1nm manufacturing technology. However, this is physically and electronically impossible; at that scale, the electricity in a silicon-based semiconductor begins to act in very “strange” ways. At that point, a huge advance in our technology will be needed to move to another manufacturing process. Something that could take us at least 20 years of research and development, as well as the development of new materials, something that companies in the sector are already doing.
However, in the short and medium term, ASICs will benefit from 5nm and 3nm. In fact, TSMC will likely start producing 5nm at an industrial level by 2021, and behind it, companies such as SMIC and STM will follow closely. But why do we name these companies? Because 90% of the ASIC chip market depends on them. These are the companies that actually decide the evolutionary pace of this very important piece of hardware in the mining world.
This makes one thing clear, the numbers we have now in ASIC power will continue to rise. And in competition Bitmain may start to experience difficulties. Its newest and most powerful miner, AntMiner S19 Pro With 110 TH/s it has quickly ceased to be the most powerful miner in the world. The culprit? A new company named MicroBT has launched the M30S++ 112 TH/sThe difference may be very small, but on a technical level they are not. AntMiner uses 7nm ASIC chips which should be more powerful and with lower power consumption. However, MicroBT uses 12nm chips, and for almost the same power consumption and price, MicroBT offers a more powerful miner.
How has it done this? Quite simply, with greater optimization. The ASIC chips designed by MicroBT are much more optimized than those of Bitmain and because of this, they simply win. And that is the next field of battle in the ASIC world, optimization. This is where the next evolutionary leap for ASICs will come from, because silicon will make it very difficult for them as the building node gets smaller, and at that point, chip optimization will be crucial to keep companies afloat, without incurring unsustainable expenses. If we add to this the “Hash Wars” it seems that very soon we will see how many companies begin to step strongly in this sense, all in order to offer their clients the most powerful miners possible and diversify the market. And in all this, the miners will also end up winning with lower prices, more powerful miners and better energy efficiency.
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